Black Wine

Back in November, Satan finally scratched an itch he has had for a while. He brewed a porter from a special Zymurgy issue from last year. And he used licorice! This from the guy who once told me that licorice would never pass his lips.

Anyway, in the same issue was a recipe for Black Wine. Basically it is a barley wine that is black. I tweaked the recipe and came up with this:

Black Wine
Partial Mash

4# two row
2# Carafa Special
1# flaked oats
1# flaked barley
3/4# chocolate malt
1/4# flaked wheat
1/4# acid malt
1/2# turbinado sugar
1 1/2# corn sugar
10# light DME
1/4 oz Northern Brewer 5.4%/Full Wort
1 oz Chinook 13%/90
2 oz Northern Brewer 5.7%/90
3/4 oz Northern Brewer 5.7%/30
1/2 oz Mt. Hood 5.2%/30
1 oz Northern Brewer 5.7%/5
1.5 oz Mt. Hood 5.2%/0
WLP002 English Ale yeast in a 4L starter

I mashed the grains at 150° F (66°C) for an hour. I was shooting for 148 to get a more fermentable wort, but I can live with this. I collected 5 gallons of liquor and added the 10 pounds of DME, bringing my volume up to 7 gallons. I boiled for 90 minutes, and at 10 minutes left I added the sugar to the wort.

I had a very aggressive fermentation, with foam everywhere, so next time I will use foam control drops. The current plan is to let this sit in primary a month, then transfer to secondary for three months. After that I will keg it and let it stand for a couple more months before bottling and long term storage in the cooler. I'm thinking this should be ready for Thanksgiving 2009 or Christmas.